Lot 309 Dα

1998 schreibt Michael Fried über die Gemälde Marionis: "In all his works of the past two decades we find that same downward flow, not only within the painted fields but also at their limits, toward the edges of the canvas, particularly the bottom and the sides, where drips are allowed to form, lower layers are permitted to show through, and an impersonal but exquisite touch makes itself felt. Another feature of his paintings is that the rectangular canvases are ever so slightly narrowed toward the bottom, to match the tendency of the downward-flowing paint to draw in from the sides; in the same spirit, the bottoms of the stretchers are rounded so as to avoid a build-up of paint along the lower edge of the canvas. The result of this highly refined interplay between the physicality of the support and the materiality of the pigment is double: it gives rise to a sense of seamlessness, of aesthetic harmony, that, again, is almost Eastern in its affective resonance [...]." (Michael Fried, Joseph Marioni: Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, in: Artforum, September 1998).¶

Carl Belz, der damalige Direktor des Rose Art Museums und Kurator der Marioni-Ausstellung führte zur Malweise des Künstlers aus: "His manner of working says much about his message. He paints with a roller because you can't draw with a roller as you can with a brush. Marioni wants to avoid any signature gesture that would get in the way of your connecting with the paint itself. And he wants to avoid any whiff of narrative or specific imagery, so he titles his pictures after the date when he made them, or their dominant color. He leaves them open to your personal reaction, which is likely to range all the way from exultation to despair. [...] With his rollers, Marioni creates opulent textures that suggest flames, lava, even cascades of goopy chocolate syrup. These elaborate configurations take time to explore. While the paintings beckon from a distance, they're most regarding close up." (Carl Belz zitiert in: Christine Temin, Emotions unfold in a one-color canvas: Single color, manifold feeling, in: The Boston Globe, 24.4.1998).